Hot dogs, ice cream, and Greek food.

It's funny the things you first notice about a place.

Right away, of course, you see that the landscape is different. More hills. Lots of trees. More lakes.

Maybe you notice that there are more shopping centers, more tall buildings, way more restaurants.

It's still the South, they still know what "sweet tea" is, but maybe the accents are different, the vowels are stretched out in funny ways that you've not heard before, or have heard before, but have forgotten about in 24 years.

You notice things missing that you're used to. No Kroger supermarkets. Few Krystal fast food joints. No Co-op stores. No Big Orange Ts. Pawprints and angry chickens, maybe a bulldog here and there.

Mostly, you just notice what's here that seems peculiar to here. You start noticing patterns of things. You start to recognize, for example, that there are a lot of places to buy hot dogs, lots of restaurants and snack stands and drive thrus devoted exclusively to hot dogs. Why are hot dogs so big in Upstate SC? Frankly, I have no idea. But never have I seen so many places in a Southern town where you can buy a hot dog.

Also, ice cream is big here. There seem to be more ice cream restaurants here, per capita, than in any other city I've ever visited or called home. I can think of 4 or 5 ice cream places within a 15 minute drive of our apartment, and none of them are Baskin Robbins or DQ.

And, Greek food. And when I say "Greek food", I don't just mean at exclusively Greek restaurants, but also at burger joints and sandwich places. You can get a gyro practically anywhere. There are an unusual number of Greek restaurants, though. Also, an usual number of diners and drive-ins and greasy spoons, many of which feature souvlaki and gyros along with the hamburgers and, yes, hot dogs. I figure that many of these neighborhood burger joints and diners were started by Greek families, and so can't help but keep some Greek delicacies on their menus. Of course, Greek food seems to be pretty popular here anyway, so it may just be that a sandwich place or burger stand has to be able to make a servicable gyro if it wants to compete in what is a pretty crowded restaurant market.

All of which is an extremely long-winded way to say that I am eating pretty well here. Since we've been here, I've had excellent Indian food, very good gyros, good falafel and shawarma and hummus, fish and chips at the (slightly scary) English tea room, damn good Carolina barbecue at Henry's, lots of ice cream, a very good hot dog in Arden, NC, and, tonight, a wonderful sandwich from Sub Station II in Taylors, which still has pinball machines in the back just like it did when Dad used to take me there 25 years ago. Surprisingly, we have not yet been to Frodo's pizza, but maybe we'll save that for when Mom and Dad and Rachel are able to come out to visit. Oh, and I had some Bojangle's, but it didn't seem as spicy as it used to. Of course, that was in Cheraw, so that fact may have been a contributing factor.
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For those keeping up with P-Cat's Grand Tour of the Carolinas, please note that my next stop will be in Seneca/Clemson, where I will be until they tell me to go somewhere else. It's only an hour from home, so no big deal, and maybe I can pick up an orange paw hat, or a beer bong (or a co-ed, hee hee, just kidding) while I'm there. How long will I be working in Clemson? Well, I don't know. I'm just glad it ain't Cheraw.

Settling back in...

Back in Greenville. Easing back into my Greenville routine.

It's good to see mountains on the horizon again. Driving up from Cheraw is like climbing a 150 mile-long hill. Travelling northwest, there's always higher ground ahead, and then you reach Greenville, and you see the Blue Ridge on the horizon, and you have to catch your breath. There's a spot on Pelham Road here where you hit a small rise and then you can see, ahead, over the trees, the hazy blue hills of the Blue Ridge, not more than 50- 60 miles away. It's the kind of view that I always took for granted in Knoxville, but that I think I will never again be able to ignore. After the oppressive flat dullness of West Tennessee, altitude, or the promise of altitude, always seems to grab my attention, at least momentarily.

It's good to be back in a food-town again, too. Cheraw was eat up with kuntry kookin joints and fast food places. Not that I have a problem with kuntry kookin, by the way, but after a few days of it, a person starts to crave something different. Had me some falafel Friday night, prepared by the nice Lebanese gentlemen at Pita House; it's the Middle Eastern hamburger, y'know. Was pretty damn good. I love that they top the falafel pita with pickle spears and that they include a bag of tater chips with the order. It's like, yeah, pickles and tater chips really go with everything. Hell, you could have a meal that was just pickles and tater chips, and I'm pretty sure that I have in the past.

Mostly, though, it's good to be back because it's good to be back. It's good to be home. It feels like home here now. I like Greenville a lot. It actually reminds me a lot of Knoxville, maybe a little better in some respects, slightly lacking in others. I think Knoxville may actually be cooler than Greenville, if it's possible at all to quantify coolness. On the other hand, Greenville has a certain confidence about itself that I tink Knoxville lacks. Downtown Greenville looks the way it does because Greenvillians didn't see any reason why they couldn't have an attractive, bustling downtown. (RANT ALERT!!) If Knoxville had as much faith in itself as Greenville does, it would be a showplace of the southeast. Knoxville always seems ashamed to make a big deal of itself. It always wants to showcase what it's close to, what it's a "gateway" to. "Gateway to the Smokies". Close to Oak Ridge, Pigeon Forge, lakes, historic sites. Stay in Knoxville on your way to some place more interesting. The fact is, Knoxville's got more going for it than cities twice its size. What it lacks is a certain confidence in itself. Maybe part of the problem is that the last time Knoxville dreamed big, it ended in embarrassment (I'm looking at you, 1982 World's Fair). Too bad. Chattanooga, Asheville, and Greenville are kicking your ass. At least you still have that giant golden phallus, and that's something, right?

Oh well, about time to go grocery shopping at one of the half dozen grocery stores within a ten minute drive of here. We won't have trouble finding buffalo meat today. Hell, I think I know where we could get some ostrich burgers, if we wanted some.